Monday, May 3, 2010

The Master Bedroom Floor is Started!!

Yes, we are finally moving into the latter stages of the master redo. The bath is 90% there and Wino is itching to get into the (slightly) bigger bedroom. A few weeks ago, I had decided on a carbonized strand woven bamboo for the floors on the bedroom level. Here's my logic- I needed a wood floor that could withstand 48 dog nails tearing around, I wanted something renewable and prefinished. Solid as opposed to engineered, but stable through humidity changes. This bamboo had everything. The strand woven bamboo is twice as hard as oak and three times more stable. If it's carbonized, the color is a warm brown that goes all the way through (they heat the bamboo and caramelize the sugars in the wood). The strand has a nice color variation that makes it look a little more like tradition hardwood too. I had decided on this product but hadn't found the price I wanted. Looking online means factoring in shipping which can get very expensive. It's a better price per sqft but with shipping, well, it's a challenge. Wino said 'let's get it!' so I got online and it happened to be Earth Week and many home improvement suppliers were having eco-friendly sales. I find the bamboo I want at 60% off (I had looked at this online store before and it really was 60% off the price they usually sold it at) plus free shipping! That's huge because the shipping cost should have been $420. So I bit the bullet and ordered the floor, not just for the bedroom but for that whole level it was such a great price, hoping the boxes would be light enough to put into my car to drive up the driveway since freight carriers only do curbside delivery.

No such luck on the weight of the boxes. They weight about 80 lbs, are over 6' long and awkward as hell. The freight truck shows up as they are replacing the guardrail on our street right in front of the driveway and have one lane blocked off. He's now blocking half of the remaining lane. The driver has the wrong phone # on his form and can't get a hold of me so he finds my neighbor at the bottom of the hill. Jim drives up to get me, chuckling about the situation. He graciously offers to get his dump truck (he's a landscaper) from a worksite close by to load the flooring cartons (22!). So we're blocking the street for about 45 minutes, the township workers are shooting daggers at me with their eyes, and the driver's forklift won't work to move the pallet of flooring to the end of the truck. It was a bit of a mess but with much help from my neighbor, we were able to get all of my new flooring into the garage.

Wino had the pleasure of moving seven cartons into the master bedroom to "stabilize to the humidity of the room prior to installation". He moved the rest over the next few days into the office (because there isn't enough stuff in there already) just to get it out of the garage. Having it in the way in the house is also a form of psychological warfare- we're more likely to be motivated about installing it if it's constantly in the way. At least that's what I tell myself. Next step- subfloor.